Do Fish Bite Before The Storm? We Did The Science

If you spend enough time around the old-timer fisherman, you've probably heard that fish bite the best as the barometer drops ahead of a big storm. Given that today was billed as a "historic" day for weather, we decided to do some fishing for science. It was in no way an attempt to get paid to spend the workday fishing...

Keeping an eagle eye on the barometer movement all Monday morning, waiting for the right time to skip out of the office, we hit the waters around the Lawton area as soon as that pressure started to drop. We aimed to hit six different redacted lakes this afternoon fishing with two different but proven redacted artificial baits, but as that final lake apparently took some damage to the fishing access, we ended up skipping it and headed back in for lunch.

With ideal rumored conditions, under an ideal cloudy sky, proven baits, and just enough water movement to keep it interesting, I'm convinced old guys are selling another type of snipe hunt with the falling barometer method. That's not to say I haven't had great success prior to a storm. I've had tremendous luck with that, just never this time of year. It's usually those random hot weather downpours that get the bass biting.

All the same, with the last storm system having rolled through the area Saturday, maybe the pressure never had the chance to stabilize in that one day of nice weather. Or, maybe we've just learned that when the weather guys start talking about "historic weather," we'll all know they're just throwing darts at a board of meteorological adjectives to gain ratings and a scared captive audience.

Either way, while it wasn't a successful day on the water, it was still a day on the water. And I'll take that over the best day at work.